Apathy can be seen by anyone with eyes for it. If you have ever walked down a street, and seen a beggar on the corner. She has a child, a young baby in her arms. They are both very thin, from lack of eating. The baby is crying from the lack of food in it's stomach, and the pain it is causing. And you have to walk on that same corner, and witness that same scene as everyone else. And like everyone else, you have a choice. You have the choice to walk past, as if it is nothing out of the ordinary (and sadly enough, it isn't anymore). But you can walk by, or you can act. You can have a feeling about what is happening, other then disgust at the womans appearance. You can take them, even for a day, you can feed them, give them warmth, show them love, act kindly to them.
Leo Tolstoy, the author of 'War and Peace', a Christian Anarchist, witnessed a scene much like this in his travels around Europe during the 1860's. In Lucrene, he stayed at an expensive hotel. At that time he was not ashamed of his wealth and good family name. He watched outside his window, as a vagrant played some lovely tunes to all who watched. Many people watched much like Tolstoy, from their window. Leo wrote that there were several hundred who passed by, and stopped to listen. This carried on for a while. Four times during his performance, the beggar asked for money, or food. And all four times, the crowd simply clapped their hands. After the forth time, the beggar left in dissapoint. Leo Tolstoy was filled with such anger over what he witnessed, he ran down the stairs, chased after the beggar, and brought him back into the hotel. He feed him a huge meal in the hotel restaurant, much to the amazement of the other upper class folk eating at the time.
Tolstoy requested that a plaque be placed outside the hotel, telling the story of what he witnessed that day. Not to surprisingly, his request was denied, but he never forgot what he saw that day.
This is the actions of one man who was not filled with apathy, as the rest were. He probably gave that man the best meal he had in a long time. Thinking back to the women beggar, what do you think her options are? The truth is that homeless women are often forced into prostitution to feed themselves, and their children. Although I believe they have the right to do this, and I believe we should make this a safer option for them, without encouraging it. But I do believe that this is a horrible waste of a persons life, to be used as a play thing for someone else, a different someone else every night. It is obviously not a good thing for ones self respect.
Apathy has many other great side effects. When the government of New Zealand decided to bring out a digital photo ID driver lisence, polls indicated that the public didn't want a photo on the computer, but were all for a photo on their lisence. Of course the government did what it always does, and turns a deaf ear to the wants of the public, and it introduced this digital photo, which keeps a picture of all who drive on a computer. With this, the government has the ability to take a photo of a large crowd, scan it into a computer, look at the bone structure of all in the crowd, and come up with a name, a birthdate and an address of everyone in the crowd.
But once the ID's were introduced, the public was suddenly hit by a case of apathy. There were a few protests by some career drivers, taxi's, truck drivers, bus drivers, but the police made sure that these went on without actually doing what they were meant to do, and slow, or stop traffic. The public accepted the ID, as if they had asked for them. They are forced on everyone now, with a higher price then previous ones, and many new regulations along with it.
Apathy to government actions has run rampant since the 60's now. Those activists of old have grown up, possibly thinking that their actions have changed everything, and now we live in a model society. Or perhaps they just don't care, they may have realised that it will take more than one generation of action to change such deep rooted traditions such as war, class structures, slave labour, inequality, racism, bigotry, hatred, sexism, and a government that doesn't care about public opinions, except around election year.
The fact is that if we don't care, if we don't act, nothing will ever change. Nigeria will still be killed by Shell Oil, McDonalds will still carry on it's lies, it's deciets, it's cover-ups. The meat industry will continue to feed the public lies about nutrition, and the importance of meat. Nike, Levi's, Guess, Tommy Hilfiger, and many other brands, will continue to force children, women, and 'unskilled' labourers of third world countries to work is sweat shop conditions, with little or no pay, wiht little choice. We all know that it is happening, but very few are willing to act, to boycott, to inform others of the evils of these companies, of these governments. The struggle with the Chiapas in Mexico is always hidden from our news. The deaths of the children in Iraq are always kept from our eyes. The truths behind many other ations of governments are never realesed to public knowledge.
An apathy continues to keep this the way it is. The indifference to act, the feelings of no opinion at all. Turning the blind eye, the deaf ear, just ignoring the truth.